Deo Gloria
Sermon for July 26, 2020
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Matthew 13:1-9,18-23
Theme: Listen Carefully to the Word of God!
- So it doesn’t get snatched away
- So it doesn’t wither and die
- So it doesn’t get choked
- So it bears abundant fruit
Two brothers grow up in the same family. They both go to church and Sunday School.
They learn the same lessons from the Word of God. One goes on to be a pastor. The other drifts away and drops out of church all together. Two people sit in church and hear the same sermon. One doesn’t get a thing out it. The other remarks to the pastor on her way out of church, “Thanks for that inspiring message today, Pastor! It really hit home.” Why does that happen? Why does God’s Word have such a different effect in different people?
Though he doesn’t answer all our questions, our Savior Jesus does address this issue in the words of our text. He helps us see why there is such a difference in the way people respond to the Word of God. But even more importantly our Savior uses the opportunity to teach his people an important lesson. He urges us to listen carefully to the Word of God, so it doesn’t get snatched away, so it doesn’t wither and die, so it doesn’t get choked, but instead so it bears abundant fruit.
The story we have before us is a familiar one, one I’m sure many of us learned about in Sunday School: the parable of the sower. A parable, remember, is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. It’s like a metaphor or a story we might tell in order to illustrate some point. Jesus often used parables to teach spiritual truths, truths about the kingdom of heaven or how things work in the kingdom of heaven. By relating them to earthly things, Jesus made it easier for people to understand and grasp such truths. In order to understand Jesus’ parables it is important that we look for the main message or the primary points of comparison. Rather than getting lost in all of the details, the thing we need to look for is: “What is our Savior trying to teach us? What is he trying to teach us about his kingdom? What is he trying to teach us about spiritual matters?” In this case we have a little help, since Jesus himself explains this parable for us in the second part of our text.
As the story goes, a farmer went out to sow seed. Fields back in Jesus’ day were a little different than they are today. Instead of being nice and square or rectangular in shape with clearly marked boundaries, fields came in all different shapes and sizes—triangles, trapezoids, heptagons. Farmers back then didn’t use 8 or 12 or 20 row planters either. No, after they had worked up the soil, they just took their bag of seed and went out in the field and scattered it by hand, which meant of course that they couldn’t always control precisely where the seed landed.
Some, as Jesus tells us, fell along the path. That was another thing about ancient fields. The road or pathway on which people traveled seldom ran along the edge of your field. More often than not it ran right through your field—across the corner, kitty corner from one side to the other, sometimes even right down the middle–and you simple had to make the best of it. Well inevitably, as the farmer sowed his seed, some of it would end up on the path, where the soil was hard and packed and the birds could easily find it. And before you know it, it was gone, snatched away by a blackbird or a sparrow.
This is the way it is with some people, Jesus says. The seed is the Word of God. When some people hear God’s Word, it doesn’t make a dent. It falls on hard ground, a hard and unbelieving heart, one that rejects the message, one that doesn’t even try to understand. And before the seed even has a chance to sprout, before the Word even has a chance to start working in that person’s heart, Satan comes and snatches it away.
Perhaps you know a few people like that. I do. They’ve heard the Word of God on occasion, maybe even came to church on Christmas Eve or Easter or for the funeral of a friend; and the Word had no effect. It just doesn’t sink in. They don’t believe the message they heard. Some don’t even take it seriously. They make jokes and snicker as they listen to the sermon. And when it’s all over, they leave church with a heart just as hard as when they first came. Sad to say, they rejected the Word. And to be sure they remained in spiritual darkness, Satan came and snatched it away.
Thank God that isn’t what happens when you or I listen to God’s Word, or is it? Do we sometimes dismiss what God tells us in his Word? Do we sometimes listen to his Word with only half an ear or a less than open heart? Are there days when the pastor’s message bounces off our hearts like a Ping-Pong ball off a brick wall? One Sunday we hear a message from God’s Word warning about misusing our tongues and we’re gossiping about other people before we even get home. God urges us to treat one another with kindness and love and we’re already fighting with our brother or sister in the car on the way home from church. We hear a sermon on stewardship. We hear how God exhorts us, how he commands us to be generous in giving to him from all that he has given us; and we dismiss what he says. We give the same $5 that we’ve always given and keep the lion’s share of our income for ourselves, and nothing has changed. May God forgive us for the times we have listened to his Word with a hard and unbelieving heart! And may he grant us open and receptive hearts, hearts that listen carefully to his Word, so it doesn’t get snatch away!
As he was scattering his seed, some fell in rocky places. It got off to good start. It sprang up quickly, but it didn’t last. When the hot, dry months of summer came along, it withered and died because it didn’t have a good root system. This, Jesus explains, is like the person who hears the word of God and receives it with joy. But when trouble or persecution come on account of the Word, he quickly falls away because he has no root.
Perhaps you know some people like that too. You invited them to church and they came. They even took instructions from the pastor and were confirmed. They seemed to be so excited about their Christian faith. They were in church almost every Sunday. But it didn’t last. Before long troubles came along: their spouse was injured in a car accident, they lost their job and struggled financially. Or worse yet, they ran into rejection or persecution from family members or friends because of their Christian faith. And they said, “Forget it. I don’t need this. I don’t need Jesus Christ, not if he’s going to treat me like this.” And they walk away from him. They stop coming to church. And whenever you talk to them about it, they just give you one excuse after another.
I remember one man whose teenage daughter was killed in a freak accident at home. It seems they had a heat lamp in their bathroom. And somehow it fell into the tub while she was taking a bath. Her father was angry. How could God let such a terrible thing happen to his daughter? The day of her funeral he swore he would never step foot in God’s house again. And he never did. Another young man went away to college. While there he took a lot of guff from both his classmates and his professors for believing in Jesus Christ and the Bible. His faith withered under the heat. He doesn’t go to church anymore either.
Be careful, friends. If it hasn’t happened yet, your faith will be tested, perhaps severely tested. Satan will bring hardship or trouble or persecution into your life and really turn up the heat on your faith. Will yours survive? Will it survive the scorching heat of trouble or persecution? It will if it has good solid roots. The problem, though, is that by the time you run into trouble or persecution it’s too late to start growing the roots. If your faith doesn’t have a good, solid root system before then, if it isn’t firmly rooted in the Word of God, it may not make it. Now’s the time to grow the roots. Now’s the time to read and study God’s Word and send down deep roots, roots that cling to God’s precious promises. Now’s the time to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ, so that when the day of evil comes, your faith will stand. Listen carefully to the Word of God.
As the farmer was scattering his seed, some of it also fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Weeds have a way of doing that, don’t they? You never have to water the weeds. You never have to fertilize the weeds. They grew like gang busters all on their own. And it’s hard to keep them under control. If you aren’t careful, they can overrun the peas and smother the spinach and choke off the carrots. The same thing happens in the spiritual world. Some people hear the Word of God and they believe it, but then their faith is choked off by the weeds, by the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth.
The cares of this life? You mean worry has a negative effect on my faith, that it can actually choke off my faith? Sure can. We worry about our health. We worry about our job. We worry about making enough money to cover our bills. We worry about our car, whether it will last another year. We worry about our children and how they’re doing in school. We worry about our safety and the safety of our children. We worry about our country and some of the crazy things we see going on. We worry about retirement and whether we’ll have enough money to retire. The dangerous thing about worry, though, is that it weakens faith. It undercuts trust in God and in his promises. Let’s face it, if we trusted God completely, we wouldn’t worry at all. So what’s the flip side of that? The flip side is that we worry all the time, because we don’t trust God. Don’t let that happen to you. Don’t let the worry weeds choke out your faith. Put your trust in God. Rely on him with all your heart. He will not fail you. That’s his promise. Remember what he said in Matthew, ch. 6?
Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? (vv. 25+26)
Don’t let the weeds of wealth get you either—the deceitfulness of wealth. People spend their entire lives pursuing money and wealth. They work and work and work some more, and in the end what do they have to show for it? Nothing. Oh yes, they may have accumulated a lot of things, but when they die, they can’t take it with them. They leave this life empty-handed. And then what? In this life, their money gave them a sense of security, a sense of power, a sense of control. There were times it even helped them deal with certain earthly problems; but it can’t do a thing about their spiritual problems. They can’t use it, for example, to pay for any of their sins or to purchase a one way ticket to heaven. When it comes to those things, when it comes to matters of eternal significance, their money is worthless. All their precious money, the money they worked so hard for, the money they put so much trust in—in the end it’s absolutely worthless. “What good is it,” Jesus said, “if a person gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”(Mk 8:36+37) Be careful, friends. Don’t let the weeds of wealth choke out your faith. Avoid the deceitfulness of wealth by putting your trust in God and the eternal riches he has provided for us in his Son Jesus Christ. Listen carefully to God’s Word.
As the farmer was scattering his seed, some fell on good soil too. It grew up and produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. This, says Jesus, represents those who hear the Word of God and understand it. As their faith grows and matures, it produces fruit, lots of fruit—many times what was sown. This is the kind of soil we all would like to be, isn’t it, good soil, productive soil, soil that produces a bountiful harvest for God and his kingdom? And that’s the kind of soil we can be, with God’s help. But therein lies the key: we need God’s help. We especially need the help of the Holy Spirit to make the soil of our hearts fertile and fruitful, because we can’t do it on our own.
Oh, yes, we’d like to think we can. In fact, we’d like to think that we are the difference, that the reason we believe in God and haven’t rejected him or fallen away and lost our faith is because we have such good hearts, when nothing could be farther from the truth. Except for the grace of God, we would be like the seed that fell along the path and was snatched away by the birds. By nature our hearts too are sinful and obstinate and hard. Left to ourselves we too would have rejected God’s Word and Satan would have snatched it away so that it never took root. But thankfully God didn’t leave us to ourselves. With his law he broke up the hard soil of our hearts. He led us to see our own sinfulness and how because of our sins we deserved his wrath and punishment. Through his law God led us to repentance. Then he came along with the comforting message of the gospel, the good news of forgiveness and salvation in Jesus Christ. And through the working of the Holy Spirit, he planted faith in our hearts, faith to believe that wonderful message. And through the hearing of his Word, God has nourished and strengthened our faith throughout our lives. Through his Word he has caused our faith to grow, to grow stronger, to grow deeper and to produce abundant fruit.
And he will continue to do that. God will continue to cause our faith to grow stronger and produce even more fruit, provided we continue to hear his Word. You see, we can reject God’s Word like the seed that fell along the path. We also can be satisfied with a shallow faith and risk losing it when we face trouble or persecution. Likewise we can allow the worry weeds and the weeds of wealth to fill our hearts and choke off our faith, but we can’t make our faith grow. That’s something only God can do; and something he will do, as we listen to his Word.
So listen carefully, friends. Take to heart the lesson your Savior is teaching here in this parable and listen carefully to the Word of God. He who has ears, let him hear. Amen.